The Summer Demands

The women at the center of Shapiro’s uneven second novel (after The Sun in Your Eyes) are in flux. Emily, just shy of 40, uprooted her and her husband David’s life in Chicago to take over a Massachusetts summer camp she inherited from her deceased aunt and uncle. She has big plans for the camp—they’ll make it into a resort and host artist residencies and provide housing for refugees—but realizes upon arriving there the enormity of that task. While David works long hours, Emily puts off the renovation, halfheartedly applies for jobs and wanders the campgrounds, dealing with the residual grief of having recently miscarried. One day, she finds 22-year-old Stella, a barista with blue nails, living in one of the cabins. Enamored by Stella’s brash charm, Emily lets Stella stay and befriends her. Their relationship evolves in surprising and increasingly intimate ways over the course of a summer, and the monotony of Emily’s previous unhappiness is disrupted by the shock of Stella’s youth and relative fearlessness. Shapiro grapples with not uncommon themes, but unfortunately doesn’t bring much new to the table. Shapiro is a thoughtful and capable writer and perfectly renders the arc of a summer affair, but there’s a tepidness to the book that lets it down. (June)